Reading Between the Lines
by purplesparkleypanda
Summary: I felt like one of our plain old lattes, milk and espresso, nothing fantastic to spice it up . . . until he walked in. Pyro's drabble challenge response.


**A/N: A caramel macchiato is a latte made backwards, with the shots put in last instead of first, and it isn't supposed to be mixed, you are supposed to taste the parts separatly. In iced form, it looks like stripes in the cup, and you can see the layers of syrup, milk, shots, ice, caramel, from the bottom up in the clear cup. **

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_86. "I want to be somebody else, 'cause I'm getting tired of myself."_

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The warm, sensuous feel of the little café overtook me as I strutted into work past the tables of intimate customers.

Dimmed lights and fresh ground coffee, familiar, yet still inviting, overwhelmed my senses as I reached the back room.

Just another day. The same old coffee house.

Today felt like one of our plain old lattes, milk and espresso, nothing fantastic to spice it up as I tied my apron and started to do a couple dishes.

A customer came in. A regular. I always thought you could tell a person's personality by their drink.

Tall white chocolate mocha. A simple person, easy to read without any modifiers.

I made the drink with ease, handing it out with a smile.

This was my life, a barista, handling the most specific and expensive habit I could think of: coffee.

Another customer walked up. A woman in a business suit.

"Grande coffee with extra cream and extra sugar," she said, amidst her phone conversation.

Ah, a business woman, with the usual choice. Though around these time in the evenings our business women usually ordered their coffee black, trying to relieve the stress of a hard day with a hard cup of black coffee.

And it went like that for the rest of the night. Mundane, with easy to read people. Strawberries and cream for the teenagers, chai tea lattes for the mothers, café mocha lattes for the fathers.

Until he walked in.

With an aura of confidence he walked in, out of place in somewhere like this. A person of his persona belonged in bar or nightclub, not a coffee house.

He picked up a newspaper, and walked up to the counter.

"I'll take an iced caramel macchiato. Stirred. With whip."

Stirred? No layers? How was I to read between the lines, to know who this customer really was if he was going to stir a caramel macchiato?

I didn't know. It was usually so easy for me to read people, but not this guy.

"You're getting an iced drink on a cold day like this?" I joked, as I poured the shots into the cup.

"I like to mix it up," he said, reading his paper, and not really looking up at me.

Usually, being ignored didn't really bother me, but this time it actually did. I wanted this guy to notice me. I wanted him to realize I wasn't just a normal, boring coffee barista, in a normal boring coffee house.

And I didn't know why.

I place the whipped cream on his drink, and he smiled at me.

"I like whipped cream," he smiled, a little too suggestively for my liking.

So he was a coffee pervert.

"I do as well," I answered, playing along, I added quietly, "but I don't like it on my drinks."

He looked a little taken back, maybe a little intrigued, "than where?"

"Leave me a tip and you might find out," I laughed, pointing to our tip jar.

He pulled out a twenty, "so does this tip include anything else, if you don't mind me asking?"

"It's not that kind of tip," I smiled seductively, "but we could work something out."

He placed the twenty in the cup.

"I'm Shane." He said, holding out his hand.

"Mitchie," I answered, shaking it.

My mundane coffee house had now become a little different. The lights seemed more vibrant, the music a little more cheery, and the faces a little less predictable. Maybe I wasn't destined for boring.

"You can provide the whipped cream," he said, handing me his number on a napkin, with a wink on his way out the door.

Shane and I might stir up our own caramel macchiato later tonight.

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**A/N: This is what I get for working at Starbucks . . . haha.**

**I tag: anyone who wants to do this. I don't really have any friends on here that haven't done the challenge yet. Refer to Pyrolyn-776's profile for the details. **


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